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13/1/2000

BANKS IN PINK AND BLUE

Henry Art Gallery, Seattle

A pair of cryogenic sperm banks, complete with gender-separated sperm specimens, stands in the middle of the East Gallery, along with one large stainless-steel liquid nitrogen tank and a video
monitor picturing a woman reciting the myriad contracts negotiated between the artist's corporation and the specimen lenders, as well as the museum and the artist. This is a site-specific sculptural installation created by artist Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle to incite a multi-faceted dialogue about the legal and ethical issues surrounding genetics and DNA.
Banks in Pink and Blue utilizes a variety of media - from the utilitarian sperm banks and liquid nitrogen tank to video, framed contracts and abstract DNA portrait photography - to address the
apparently disparate concerns of aesthetics, genetics, ethics, and social issues.

While visually simple, the installation presents a number of complex issues and tensions. Perhaps foremost of these is the idea of "ownership." Each sperm sample in the cryotanks (also know as
dewars) will continue to be the legal property of the lender and the bank will preserve the viability of the lender sample for a particular period of time. The artist, however, is exploring the possibility of transferring ownership of the samples from the lender to other individuals. Like much of Manglano-Ovalle's work, Banks in Pink and Blue picks apart complex relationships, poses disconcerting questions about the knowledge that DNA holds and to whom that knowledge is accessible, and engages a number of collaborators - geneticists, biotech companies, legal consultants and medical ethicists.

Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington
15th Ave NE and NE 41st Street, 351410 Seattle, WA 98195-1410
206-543.2280 ph 206-685.3123 fax

Thursday, January 13, 6:30pm
admission to the reception is free

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